The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the
second release candidate for KDE 4.0. This release candidate marks the last
mile on the road to KDE 4.0. This release sees increasing participation from distributions, you can download packages for Debian, Kubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE & Fedora or grab the live CDs from Kubuntu & openSUSE.

While progress on the quality and completeness of what is to become the KDE 4.0 desktop
has been great, the KDE Community decided to have another release candidate before releasing
KDE 4.0 on January 11th. The codebase is now feature-complete. Some work is still being done
to put the icing on the KDE 4.0 cake. This includes fixing bugs,
finishing off artwork and smoothing out the user experience.

support for the buttons are still there and they work, but the actions have been disabled for the time being. it needs a way to pull actions based on mimetype, essentially like servicemenus but a bit more focused.

I have the same problem if I choose OpenGL in the "advanced options" box, but it works fine (but slow) with Xrender.

Also, there is a tool wich switch the backend and asks if every thing is OK. If after 10 seconds nothing has been answered, it return to previous config. So I had no problem with it if I did from the system setings window.

I also tried Xrender and it worked fine. I then switched back to OpenGL and the problem was back so the problem is obviously with OpenGL. One doesn't get all that amount of fancy effects with Xrender though and it's a bit slow like you pointed out.

I had the same issue (ATI r300 chipset w/ 6.7.192 opensource drivers, xorg-server v1.4, mesa v7.02, aiglx, on Gentoo). I changed my config from using XAA rendering to EXA rendering, and it became useable.

Unfortunately, the shadows don't draw cleanly, the effects are slow, and for some reason, the effects aren't turned off when I disable them from system settings. I'm chalking it up to not a wide enough test-base at the moment.

I've got the same issue with an r350(9600 Pro) and the DRI drivers. I haven't tried EXA because it becomes unusable for me. However, with XAA and everything else Compiz/Beryl/Kcompmgr(kde3) work just fine, while Kwin-composite in KDE4 doesn't.

I really like the idea of having the choice of hide/show the background of plasma for the applets, just like was made for the battery applet on its configuration dialog. Wouldn't be great if we have that option on all/almost all applets?

what happened with functionality of panel. How to resize it, how to move appets, how to add apets, how to show realy cool clouds (like KDE 3.5), how to config window list (2 rows instend one) ... Could I remove (or something else) panel?

that's not sure, btw, there are currently 5 things which could happen:
- we keep kickoff (not as unlikely as you think, once used to it many ppl like it)
- we go back to an old-style menu (I don't think that's very likely, but maybe...)
- we use Raptor (once it's finished it might have a good chance)
- we use Lancelot (again, seems like a pretty good option)
- or something else pops up... Not unlikely, given the architecture Plasma offers ;-)

Tab to jump between the menu and the search prompt. Enter to go into a submenu; Esc to go back to a parent menu. Left and right cursor keys to swith between different main menus (like Favourites and Applications).

Still, I'm glad to see that the latest KDE commit-digest shows work being done on a KDE3-style "simple menu" for the new panel, too. :-)

By replace I mean its going to do the same thing as kickoff, not the same thing as the panel. I assumed the reader would be smart enough to follow the conversation and do appropriate interpretations in his/her head. I can see I was wrong.

I would like to know the same... if the new panel will be configurable. It's kinda awkward for people like me who are used to Kicker. Right click with the mouse doesn't give one any configuration options. I hope that these little issues will be solved before KDE4 is released, otherwise the devs should not be afraid to postpone the release date until everything is working the way it should. We would be very disappointed to have a KDE4 with less functionality than 3.5x.

I would like to say a big thanks and praise to the devs for the tremendous work that they have done and ask them please not to let the public or anyone pressure them into releasing KDE4 before it's finished!

Kicker is dead, Plasma is new - many things available in kicker have gone, and will only re-appear in later KDE releases. Luckily, the bugginess of some areas of kicker and all the hard-to-maintain code is also gone ;-)

But yeah, you can still use kicker if you want. And some of the things you mention will appear before 4.0 is out.

I am a longtime KDE user and one of the things keeping me away from GNOME was the possibility of configuring almost anything easily and faster. Now, in KDE 4 we have plasma. I can't argue about the improvement that plasma is, but if the panel stays that way, many users will migrate from KDE to GNOME or other window managers.

For example I use kicker with height of 38px, which on 96 DPI is the minimum for having two rows of apps at 1280x1024 resolution. In KDE 3.5.8 all I have do do is to click several times and enter the desired values. In KDE 4 RC2 - still no success about this and plasma takes too much space on my screen! Also about changing the size of kickoff - in KDE 3.5.8 just drag the top right corner of the menu, in KDE 4 RC2 - no chance to do it. Hope this will change before KDE 5 (whenever it is).

"but if the panel stays that way, many users will migrate from KDE to GNOME or other window managers."

It won't stay that way. Why are people simply assuming that it will? Did KDE gain no features or configuration options at all between 3.0 and 3.5? No. So why do people assume this will be the case for KDE4?

"Also about changing the size of kickoff - in KDE 3.5.8 just drag the top right corner of the menu, in KDE 4 RC2 - no chance to do it."

There have been a few discussions about adding this functionality, but so far no one has stepped up to do it. When someone does, you'll have it.

"Hope this will change before KDE 5 (whenever it is)."

Since KDE5 won't likely even be started until 2012, I think you're setting your sights too low :)

I've stopped using the full KDE4 session. I give it a try now and then, but the desktop experience is, despite some eye candy, not ready for me concerning usability and productivity. Reasons for this have been discussed over and over here and elsewhere (Kickoff, new Panel, missing configuration options etc.) and need not to be discussed again, as nobody seems to acknowledge this.

However, I continue trying the KDE4 apps on a KDE3 desktop.

With the current RC, I once again tried some (IMHO) key apps of KDE4 in daily use. However, even here I'm a bit disappointed with the current state - giving that we are talking about RC2. Many bugs have been around for as lang as I try the KDE4 betas!

KMail: Unusable because I'm afraid of losing data. Especially with IMAP nothing really works. kioslave begins to eat up CPU time and temporarily messes up the account.
Konqueror: Definitely getting better every release, however still not even up to Konqueror3 concerning the amount of sites rendered correctly????!?!?! I sincerely put my hopes in WebKit some time...
Crypto-Stuff: Everything in connection with Crypto/Certificates is kind of messed up. KMail and Konqueror don't always remember certificates, and if you want to manage this stuff with Kmail/Konquerors settings module, only strange letters come up for this certificates.
Konsole: YES! The one and only applicatioin which runs since the first betas and is really an improvement in comparision to the already great KDE3-konsole!

I know that probably all these apps are not considered as part of the core KDE, however... there are still quite some things to get done in KDE4! And yes, I know, most programmers develop KDE for free and all that, but nevertheless...

"Reasons for this have been discussed over and over here and elsewhere (Kickoff, new Panel, missing configuration options etc.) and need not to be discussed again, as nobody seems to acknowledge this."

It's been acknowledged several times and - guess what - devs are working on all of the things you mentioned as we speak!

What on Earth gave you the impression that no one was acknowledging these complaints?

OK, let's put it another way: It has been in some aspects acknowledged, but not been given priority concerning the RCs.

However, my point was something else: I consider the state of some of the core apps as not up to a RC.

Konqueror messes up to much. Something with the cookie management is broken (e.g. Ebay sometimes has hickups when logging in. Certificate management for https:/ seems to be broken. Konqueror renders less pages correctly as previous versions. Some settings are not saved.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't like Dolphin and Firefox, but for me Konqueror (and the embedded technologies) always were the prime example for KDEs superiority. Konqueror is for me still the main app on the desktop, and it's not yet up to daily usage because of bugs that have been around for quite some time.

It's the same with some other apps like KMail, which still is, at least for me, completely unusable.

I know, the word is out that KDE4 is only about the library stability, but I'd rather have a set of working and seemlessly integrated core apps, too.

PIM just won't be released with KDE 4.0. Divide the number of people working on it (with time) by the number of applications and you'll understand why. Especially for data-critical apps like PIM. To some extent we *have* to rely on users wanting to scratch the PIM itch enough to become developers here - there aren't enough people on the PIM project otherwise.

More information on PIM -- and even people posting "how can I help?" in blog comments sections -- may be found on the internet.

Aaron, I continue to be amazed about how patient you are. Most of us who thinks things are moving along nicely and don't have any major gripes stay silent. That doesn't mean that we don't appriciate your (and the other devs) work.

Thanks very much for that wonderful imput. I guess some of us unconsciously try to but the devs under pressure but that's the last thing that they should have now. In spite of that I personally believe that everyone here (even those who criticize) greatly appreciate the invaluable work that the KDE team is doing.
I once tried to program a very simple calculator and that was a heck of a job (with a thousand bugs of course). Imagine these guys are programming a whole desktop!